Psychosocial therapy: characteristics, objectives and operation

Psychosocial therapy focuses primarily on the treatment of patients with schizophrenia.

Psychosocial therapy is mainly used in cases of people with schizophrenia.. This therapy seeks the rehabilitation and reintegration of the person with a mental disorder into society. It focuses on enhancing the patient's empathy and promoting different types of skills (social, communicative...).

In addition, it also takes into account the family, and starts from an integrative view, which allows to understand the subject as a whole. In this article we will know its characteristics, the techniques it uses, the objectives it pursues and how it can help people affected by schizophrenia.

Psychosocial therapy: characteristics

Psychosocial therapy is a type of therapy especially indicated for patients with a schizophrenic disorder. It starts from a holistic vision of the person, understanding that the disorder is born of a series of multifactorial causes, and where the genetic component also has an important weight.and where the genetic component also has an important weight.

This type of therapy, also called psychosocial and occupational rehabilitation, seeks above all the reintegration of the person with a mental disorder into society.. It is usually carried out by an interdisciplinary team of mental health professionals (primary care physicians, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, etc.). As for its theoretical foundations, it is based on a vulnerability-stress model.

This vulnerability-stress model maintains that, in mental disorders, there is a previous vulnerability (biological, social...) in the person, but also a series of external events that, "in contact" with this vulnerability, trigger the symptoms.

Applied to the case of schizophrenia, there would be a series of triggers (stressors) and external factors, in the subject's environment, which would trigger or originate the psychotic outbreak; this would occur because there is a vulnerability to the symptoms of schizophrenia. would occur because there is a previous personal vulnerability in the patient..

Treatments in schizophrenia

There are different types of psychological treatments for schizophrenia. We can classify them into four main blocks: interventions oriented to the organization of care (where we would find psychosocial therapy); group interventions on cognitive variables, social cognition and social skills (HHSS); psychoeducational group interventions; and cognitive-behavioral packages (individual approach).

Within each of these blocks, we would find different therapies indicated for patients with a schizophrenic disorder. At the same time, there are different degrees of efficacy of the therapies, according toAccording to the reference manuals (effective, probably effective and experimental therapies), there are different degrees of effectiveness of the therapies. Psychosocial therapy, in particular, has been shown to be effective in the treatment of schizophrenia. This means that there have been several controlled studies that support its efficacy.

Objectives

Psychosocial therapy or psychosocial rehabilitation establishes a series of objectives that can be personalized and adapted to each case. These are, fundamentally:

1. Acquiring or recovering skills

These skills can be of different types: social skills (to facilitate interactions with others), cognitive skills, coping with stress, tolerance to frustration, etc.

2. Promoting social integration

The achievement of social integration is also related to the fostering of autonomous functioning in the patient. That is to say, both concepts go hand in hand; the patient's integration into society (with a circle of friends, an involved family network, a job...) will favor the patient's autonomy, and vice versa.

3. Preventing deterioration

Preventing the deterioration of the patient is also achieved through the prevention of marginalization and institutionalization.

4. Rehabilitation for employment

This objective is related to sheltered employment (protected labor market). Within it, we find the CET (Special Work Centers) or CEE (Special Employment Centers), where people with a minimum degree of disability of 33% can work. In this case, people with schizophrenia could be incorporated into the labor market, performing an adapted job, as far as possible.In this case, people with schizophrenia could be incorporated into the labor market, performing an adapted job, as close as possible to an ordinary job.

5. Advise and support families

Families of people with schizophrenia also suffer a lot from their loved one's disorder, especially families who are very involved.

That is why psychosocial therapy, in addition to providing guidelines and psychological care, aims to help families learn to identify the warning signs of a possible psychotic break in their family member (child, sibling, cousin...). This will be important in order to anticipate and be able to act before, by going to a medical professional.

What is the purpose of psychosocial therapy?

The main objective of psychosocial therapy for schizophrenia is the psychosocial rehabilitation of the person and his or her integration into the community. This means that it it seeks to free the patient from the social stigmatizations that surround the fact of suffering from a mental disorder, and to enable him/her to lead a life as free as possible from the social stigmatizations that surround the fact of suffering from a mental disorder.This means that he/she can lead a life as "normal" and autonomous as possible, with his/her human rights preserved and a good quality of life.

On the other hand, this type of therapy, as we indicated at the beginning, focuses a lot on the emotions and on the perception of them.In other words, it aims for the patient to learn to identify the different emotions, and the situations that provoke them.

It also seeks that the patient can not only understand himself, but also others. That is to say, to be able to correctly interpret social situations, body gestures, the words of others, etc. All these elements and objectives, according to psychosocial therapy, will increase the patient's quality of life and facilitate his or her social integration.

The ultimate goal is that the subject "adapts" to the mental disorder and learns to live with it.

Techniques

The techniques and strategies used by psychosocial therapy are based, above all, on promoting the patient's empathy through tools and tasks that allow working on the recognition of emotions.

To work on empathy, the therapy focuses on the well-known theory of mind.This ability explains the fact that we can put ourselves in the other person's place, and that we can understand that there are mental states (and thoughts, reflections, opinions...) in other people's minds that are different from our own.

Communication techniques

On the other hand, some communication techniques are also used in psychosocial therapy, with the objective that the patient learns to communicate effectively and assertively, respecting the other and respecting himself/herself.respecting the other and respecting oneself. These are techniques, therefore, that promote healthy communication and a correct expression of emotions.

Behavioral techniques

Psychosocial therapy also includes behavioral techniques and cognitive techniques (to be discussed later). Behavioral techniques, in addition to working on the patient's inappropriate behaviors and enhancing the patient's adaptive behaviors, are especially aimed at promoting and enhancing the patient's adherence to pharmacological treatment.

The pharmacological treatment (usually antipsychotics) in the case of schizophrenia, as in all mental disorders, is of vital importance for the patient to be able to lead as normal a life as possible.

In addition, the drugs can significantly reduce and alleviate the patient's symptoms, helping the patient's recovery after a psychotic break. In other words, psychopharmacological treatment in this case is a basic treatment, essential, which allows us to work with the patient at other levels (social, occupational, psychological...).

Without a correct medical prescription (i.e. a treatment appropriate to the patient's needs and profile) and correct adherence to pharmacological treatment by the patient, psychosocial therapy cannot "act".

Cognitive techniques

On the other hand, cognitive techniques, which can also be used in psychosocial therapy (although it is not as common), are focused on reducing the distorted thoughts of reality that disturb the patient..

However, it is true that to treat delusions and hallucinations, for example, as well as paranoid thoughts, a therapy within the block of cognitive-behavioral packages for schizophrenia (discussed at the beginning) is more indicated.

This is because psychosocial therapy, in fact, is more focused on rehabilitating and reintegrating the patient into society; for this purpose, however, it is true that it is important that both the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia are controlled..

4. Integrative approach

Thus, we see how psychosocial therapy is based on an integrative approach, which aims to maintain a holistic view of the disorder and the person who suffers from it. That is why it draws on strategies and tools from different fields and theoretical orientations within psychology.